Our hope for Look at the Book is to help you learn to read the Bible for yourself. We invite you to engage the passage first, and consider the featured study questions, before watching the lab below.

Many of us read that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God and think of millionaires. The rest of the world reads it and thinks of us. In this lab, John Piper shows us that what is impossible for man with regards to salvation is possible with God.

Some questions to ask as you read and study Luke 18:18–27:

What do you think classifies a rich person? Why would it be difficult for such a person to enter the kingdom of God (Luke 18:24)?

In the lab, John Piper wants to show us how to engage with someone who would tell us “the eye of a needle” (Luke 18:25) was a gate in Israel that a camel could get through if it bent. How would you show that this is false?

What does Jesus mean when he says, “What is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:27)? Has God done the impossible in you?

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Principle for Bible Reading

Search in Concentric Circles

When seeking for answers concerning how a biblical author uses a word or phrase in a verse, it is often helpful to start by seeking answers in the immediate context and then moving outward. Good Bible reading, like a stone dropped in a pond, starts at the word or phrase in question and ripples out to other places in the Bible to get help for understanding. Starting your search in the immediate verse and moving outward is often called searching in concentric circles.

After searching in the immediate verse, it is key to look for the author’s meaning in: